


Merry Christmas, Ya Filthy Animals

by Minnicoops



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:47:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28319937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minnicoops/pseuds/Minnicoops
Summary: Major Lorne, quarantined due to a case of the Pegasus Pox, just wants to enjoy a quiet Christmas for once. Seems the universe has other plans, and it will take all of his ingenuity and knowledge of holiday films to save Atlantis. A silly action-adventure fic to celebrate the season.
Comments: 30
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I asked for Stargate for Christmas but didn't get it, which means I still don't own this wonderful franchise. I'm just borrowing the characters. I promise to return them in reasonable condition when I'm done.
> 
> A/N: I went back and forth on whether to actually post this, but decided I might as well. Fair warning, it's pretty silly, and if you think too hard about it, you'll find about a billion plot holes. But the movies I ripped off, erm, I mean, payed homage to within the story really don't make a whole lot of sense either, so there's that. I hope you enjoy it anyway. As with all my fics, this one is mostly about Lorne, but there's a decent bit with McKay near the end.
> 
> No beta on this one (because I am too impatient to post and took too long to finish it), so all mistakes are on me.

Evan Lorne was not a fan of Christmas. Well, that wasn’t entirely true; he enjoyed celebrating the holiday with his family, which happened anywhere between Halloween and Valentine’s Day, depending on when he ended up getting leave. But December 25th itself was a date he could forever blot out of his calendar and never miss.

It wasn’t that anything particularly _bad_ ever happened to him on Christmas Day, it’s just that nothing particularly _good_ had happened since he joined the Stargate program six years ago. He didn’t mind that he had to work most years, and was actually one of the first to volunteer for it to let others go home and be with their families. But for whatever reason, the universe had a dark sense of humor and liked to throw him the most annoying, tedious, and otherwise unpleasant adventures on this day of all days every year.

He was beginning to think Christmas was cursed.

This year, he’d gotten an early Christmas present from the universe in the form of a virus that Beckett said was “basically the Pegasus equivalent of Chicken Pox.” He wasn’t even sure where he’d picked it up, and somehow, had been the only one on his team lucky enough to contract the itchy red blisters. As irritating as it was, Beckett had concluded that it wasn’t a severe case, and so hadn’t forced him to stay in the infirmary, which was a relief. However, upon consulting Teyla and realizing the disease was highly contagious, Evan had been quarantined to his quarters until the rash was gone, which was expected to be about a week.

The itching spots and sore throat and slight fever weren’t any fun, but Evan tried to look at the positives of the situation, being the optimist that he was. Someone delivered food to him a few times a day, and Jones had lent him his hard drive loaded with movies, plus he still hadn’t had a chance to do much sketching since he’d gotten here, so he could do that. Maybe even paint if he felt really motivated. At least he wasn’t stuck on that ice planet with Doctor Rednau and Doctor Fertick (who would give McKay a run for his money on being the most self-centered scientists Evan had ever worked with) like two years ago, or trekking through the mosquito infested rainforest planet like last year. And possibly the biggest bright side to being quarantined was that he had a legitimate excuse to miss the Christmas party.

It wasn’t technically a “Christmas” party, per say, but rather a “winter solstice celebration” that just happened to fall on December 24th. But since a majority of the people attending it would be the Marines who were stuck in the city for the holidays, and most of them were the type of people who insisted on saying “Merry Christmas” versus “Happy Holidays,” it was going to be a Christmas party no matter what Doctor Weir tried to call it.

The entire thing had been planned by the small faction of the Atlantis crew who were concerned about the overall morale of a group of people stuck a three week ride on the _Daedalus_ away from their loved ones. The unofficial “party planning committee” had apparently started hosting these little shindigs every few months since the expedition first arrived in Atlantis (whenever the city wasn’t under imminent threat of being destroyed), but now that they were back in communication with Earth, they’d gone all out to make this the biggest party yet.

Evan wasn’t opposed to parties in general, he enjoyed the snack tables that went along with them just as much as the next guy, but he’d been in Atlantis for less than five months and wasn’t entirely comfortable with his position here yet. That mixed with the fact that he was more of an introvert made the entire idea of awkwardly making small talk all evening unappealing. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or a little sad that he would be missing out on the Christmas karaoke (he’d heard a few of the Marines practicing, and while some were surprisingly good singers, others were unsurprisingly not). But overall, he wasn’t too disappointed that he would miss the party, especially since Kennel had promised to bring him some snacks later.

So that was how Evan found himself dozing off while watching _Christmas Story_ (because he might as well) on his laptop, trying to ignore his urge to scratch and wondering what kinds of delicious food the commissary had whipped up for the party. 

He woke up some time later to a dead computer and a rumbling stomach. Sitting up, he glanced at the clock and did a double take when he saw the time. No wonder he was hungry; it was almost 2130. His dinner was usually delivered around 1800, but he hadn’t heard the door chime. Had he slept through it?

Closing the laptop and pushing it aside, he sighed and reached for his radio. They’d probably gotten busy with the party and forgotten about him. He hated to be the guy who demanded someone cater to him, but he was pretty sure if he didn’t ask someone for some food he would just have to go hungry, and this Christmas already sucked enough as it was. Whoever was on duty in the infirmary was probably bored anyway and wouldn’t mind the interruption.

He switched his radio to call the frequency for the doctor on duty—he couldn’t remember who it was supposed to be tonight—but he got no response. Frowning, he tried again with no luck before switching to the open channel to see if anyone could tell him which doctor was supposed to be in. No response there either.

Double checking that his radio was on (it was), he switched to the command frequency and tried to reach someone there, figuring that even if they were off duty at a party, people like Sheppard and Weir would keep their radios on them. Still nothing. Was his radio not working?

“Okay, that’s weird,” he murmured to himself, scooting out of bed and deciding he would just pop his head out of the door and see if anyone was milling about. He was getting an “only person left in the world” vibe, probably from being isolated for a few days now, and however irrational it may be, he needed to see that someone else was out there.

The hall was empty, which didn’t really mean all that much. It was early enough in the evening that everyone who wasn’t on duty was probably still at the party, though he would have expected a few of the early-to-bed folks would be heading back to their quarters, or at least some drunken couples trying to find a quiet place away from everyone. He decided to wander a little ways down the hall, even though he wasn’t really supposed to be out and about. His concern grew as the further he went, the more empty hallways he encountered.

He turned toward Ops, because it was closer than the infirmary and he knew that someone would _definitely_ be there, but it would also be less populated than the mess hall, so he wouldn’t expose as many people to his Pegasus Pox. He got about halfway there when he finally heard voices coming his direction. Suddenly unsure how he would explain himself when asked why he was wandering around the hallways (“I thought everyone disappeared” sounded a little paranoid), and at the same time realizing he was only dressed in his flannel pajama pants and a t-shirt and didn’t even have socks on his feet, he made a split second decision to duck around the corner and hide. 

“The commander wants us to check all of these levels,” the first voice said. “Check every room. We don’t want to miss anyone.”

“Aye, sir,” said the second, and then there was the sound of boots moving in different directions.

Evan flattened himself against the wall behind a pillar as four men in uniforms he didn’t recognize, carrying weapons he’d never seen, marched past. What the hell? Okay, maybe he _had_ been justified in being concerned.

Waiting until they were gone, he continued to sneak down the hall, this time with more caution than before. He didn’t make it much further before he ran into more of the unfamiliar soldiers marching down the hall. This time, he got a better view before ducking behind a large potted planet to hide. 

Evan had always found it odd that out of the millions of ways life could have evolved in the galaxy, so much of it looked so similar to humans. Of course, a lot of aliens in the Milky Way were technically humans, displaced by the Goa’uld, and in Pegasus apparently the Ancients had some hand in seeding some of the races they encountered, so that helped explain it to a degree. But whoever these people were, they were decidedly _not_ human, even though they had two legs and two arms and one head. Their skin was much too gray, and there were ridges along their cheekbones and noses that almost resembled the Unas Evan had worked with back when he was with SG-11. He hadn’t been in Pegasus long, but he’d read a ton of reports and bits of the Ancient database (the translated parts, that is), and he’d never come across a race that matched this description. So who were they, and where had they come from?

“Sir, we’ve got squadron one posted around the command hub and squadron two and three checking the living spaces now for any stragglers,” Evan heard another soldier report. “But the bulk of the Lanteans were in the celebration, as you predicted. We think we have gathered the rest and are sending them to meet the others on Uliruah now.”

Uliruah? Didn’t ring any bells. But he wasn’t thrilled about the idea of his people being transported to wherever it was. 

“Wonderful,” a gravelly voice answered. “What of the ones who were giving us trouble?”

“They were convinced to cooperate once they saw we were not afraid to use force. Their computer scientist is giving us access to the systems as we speak, though he may require some… _motivation_ to complete the task.”

Computer scientist? Had to be McKay or Zelenka. And what exactly did they mean by motivation?

“Good, good. Keep that one in the city, along with the two we’ve programmed, but get the rest out. I do not want any of them to remain here. Atlantis belongs to us now.”

“Yes, sir,” the first voice answered. “I will ensure we do another sweep of the other levels once we have completed the living spaces.”

Again, the sound of boots, and Evan slid around the pot to remain hidden as they passed by. He could already hear more soldiers marching down the hall. How many of these guys were there, and how had they managed to take Atlantis?

Well, they hadn’t taken him yet, and he didn’t intend to let them. 

He needed a place to lie low while he figured out what the hell was going on and how to stop it. Preferably a place with some guns and a computer—and a computer nerd who could hack into the systems and shut these people out, but he probably wasn’t going to get that last one. Maybe if he could rescue whoever they had helping them. 

He assumed the armory would be guarded since it was closer to the central tower than where he currently was, which meant both it and his office down the hall from it were out. It sounded like they were searching the quarters now, so probably shouldn’t head back that way. One of the labs would have to suffice for now. McKay and Zelenka had to have some Ancient tech in there that could help him out. Hopefully something he could use as a weapon. At the very least, there should be an Ancient PDA, which would be handy for seeing where exactly the bad guys were.

Now he just had to get there without being seen.


	2. Chapter 2

After a lot of running from potted plant to pillar to corner and hiding as more and more of the soldiers passed by, Evan managed to get to the transporter and hit the button that would take him toward the engineering labs. 

He poked his head out of the transporter when the doors opened and spotted a few guards milling around pretty far down the hall with their backs turned toward him. The door to the lab was only about twenty-five feet away, so he took a chance and bolted for it as quietly as possible, wincing as the door swooshed open, and ducked inside quickly, expressly _not_ thinking the lights on. Unsure if he had attracted the attention of the soldiers with the noise, he pressed himself against the wall inside the door and waited to see if anyone showed up. 

No one did, so he began to look around for something useful. It was hard to see much in the darkened room, but there was just enough light coming from the various power strips and buttons on machines to see the general shape of things. Computer, that was what he needed. The first step was to figure out how these people had gotten in and how many there were. He moved further into the room and had to bite back a curse when he stubbed his toe against a desk. Should’ve put on some shoes before he left his room.

He slid into the chair of the desk and opened the laptop, squinting at the bright screen that greeted him. Turning down the brightness, he glanced toward the door again. So far, so good. “Let’s see what I missed,” he said quietly, unconsciously rubbing at his itching neck as he logged in.

Evan was far from a computer expert, but he was competent in using the systems that applied to his work, and some of those happened to be the security cameras. He pulled up the footage from the gate room first, assuming that’s how these people had arrived, and cued the tape back to 1700. That was around the time he’d stopped paying attention to radio chatter for the day (he’d been listening in out of boredom) and started watching his movie instead, so whatever had happened must have been after that. 

He fast forwarded, not noticing anything out of the ordinary until around 1845, when the team on guard duty in the gateroom all suddenly dropped to the ground and the gate activated. He rewound and played it back in real time, frowning as this time he saw the stunner bolts before the gate opened and soldiers started pouring in. There had to be at least fifty of the unfamiliar soldiers.

Okay, so they’d come through the gate, but that still didn’t explain who had stunned the guards and let them in. He cued up the video for Operations next for around the same time and his frown deepened when he saw Lieutenant Eaton and Corporal Clarke enter the room before drawing stunners and taking out the guards and gate tech in such rapid procession that no one could react. Eaton then fiddled with the computers for a few minutes and lowered the shield when the gate activated, greeting the leader of the soldiers with a firm handshake.

“What is going on?” he muttered, pulling up the hallway outside Ops next to watch the alien soldiers make their way toward the mess hall, moving as a well trained military unit and shooting anyone they encountered on the way with what Evan hoped was a stunner. It seemed to be, as more soldiers then swooped in to tie the unconscious peoples’ hands and carry them away.

Checking the door again to be sure he was still alone, Evan continued following the soldiers via the video footage as they marched through the city, eventually ending up outside the mess hall where the party was happening. As they prepared to breach the mess hall, he found himself tensing, his heart thumping in fear. This was where things could turn really ugly. So far, he didn’t think they’d killed anyone, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t upon entering the crowded hall.

They came in hard and well-prepared, tossing in some kind of smoke grenade before raiding the room. It was hard to see through the smoke, and there was no sound on the video, but once the picture started clearing, Evan could see that the intruders were rounding up his friends and teammates at gunpoint. He felt his blood boil at the sight.

A commotion in the corner of the screen caught his eye and he squinted, trying to see the pixelated image better. Eventually, he made out two of the soldiers hauling Sheppard toward the others, blood leaking from a nasty cut on the side of his head. They shoved him into the crowd, and Teyla and Doctor Weir moved forward to steady him before he fell on his face. Evan wondered if the unconscious figure in the background might be Ronon.

Another alien soldier came into view holding Miko Kusanagi in a neck lock, handgun pointed at her head. She looked absolutely petrified, squeezing her eyes shut and wincing as she waited for him to shoot her. Evan clenched his fists and held his breath, unable to tear his eyes away. The soldier in the hall had said they’d had to use force, that they’d somehow motivated whoever was helping them to do so, and he hoped to God that didn’t mean they’d hurt sweet, shy Miko.

The next couple of minutes of footage were agonizing as he watched the soldier yell something to the rest of the crowd, who had frozen with the same fear as Evan. He didn’t need sound to know what the guy was saying. After another minute and a couple of emphatic shoves of the gun into Miko’s temple, McKay stepped forward, shaking hands raised in surrender, as Sheppard moved to try and stop him. A nearby soldier knocked Sheppard in the gut with the butt of his gun while another grabbed McKay and tied his hands, dragging him toward the door.

Dammit, this was so not good.

Evan skipped through some more video footage, watching the intruders escort small groups from the mess hall to the gate room and pushing them through the open gate. By now he had a pretty good idea of what had gone down without watching all the details. 

It had been less than a year since the last foothold situation in Atlantis, when the Genii had taken advantage of a massive storm that forced the population to evacuate. Evan hadn’t been here at the time, but he’d read all about it and the insane heroism of the then Major Sheppard in single-handedly taking back control of the city. Since then, they’d put in extra measures to ensure that kind of thing didn’t happen again. Measures that apparently hadn’t been enough to stop these people from sneaking in.

They would have had to have some insider information to know the exact time that Atlantis would be weakest, when almost half its residents were back on Earth for Christmas and those who remained were distracted by a party. Even so, they hadn’t left the place defenseless. 

But they’d somehow managed to get Eaton and Clarke to open the door for them and take out the main line of defense against intruders. Evan couldn’t fathom how, or when, these aliens they had never encountered before had managed to convince the two to give up Atlantis.

Or how he, one man who wasn’t even close to being at his best right now, was supposed to take it back.

Sheppard taking on the Genii, that made sense. The man was crazy. That’s why, in Evan’s opinion, he was such a good fit as the commanding officer for this expedition; because he was willing to throw the rulebook out the window and improvise, which often needed done in an alien galaxy where normal rules didn’t apply. But Evan wasn’t built like that. He found comfort in rules, liked following orders. 

It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle thinking innovatively or making hard decisions—he’d been chosen as Sheppard’s second for a reason—but he was still learning the fine art of the haphazardly thrown together, usually somewhat suicidal, plans that Sheppard seemed to be able to pull out of thin air.

The screen suddenly plunged into darkness along with the rest of the room—someone must have cut the power. The emergency lights flickered on a second later, casting the lab in an eerie glow that was barely enough to see by. Evan stood, looking around for a flashlight or something so he could find the supplies he’d been hoping to snag while he was here, but dove under the desk when he heard the door swish open. So they hadn’t cut all the power; just the lights and computers.

“Check all these rooms. Their scientist thinks it’s down here somewhere.”

What were they looking for? Evan scooted further under the desk as a light swept by, narrowly missing him. Footsteps moved into the room and he dared a peek to see one of the soldiers moving toward the opposite side of the lab, a light attached to the gun he had raised to look around. The way he moved told Evan he had some training in clearing rooms.

The lab wasn’t that large, and the way this guy was moving through it, he would find Evan in about a minute, which gave Evan about as much time to come up with a plan. He crawled out from under the desk as quietly as he could and crouched beside a nearby bookshelf. He needed to take this guy down, grab his gun and any other gear he had.

Of course, taking out one of their soldiers would all but broadcast his presence to the bad guys, but he knew the city and its hiding places pretty well. And what else was he supposed to do, hide until they were able to complete whatever evil plot they had going on? Sheppard wasn’t here this time—it was up to Evan. And as much as he would have preferred someone else figuring out what to do about the problem, he wasn’t just going to sit by and let these alien invaders have his city.

Hell, if John McClane could take on a building full of terrorists, he could take on some aliens, right?

He waited until the soldier was about to spot him before jumping him, grabbing his gun before he could get a shot off and shoving the weapon back into his face to break his nose. The guy brought his elbow up and clipped Evan hard on the jaw, but he recovered quickly and kicked at the side of the guy’s knee, wincing when his bare foot hit the muscular leg hard. That was going to leave a bruise. Still, it threw off the soldier’s balance just enough for Evan to smash the back of the gun into his face again, effectively knocking him out.

Unfortunately, the soldier was a big guy and crashed down hard onto the edge of the metal desk, sending it screeching across the tile floor as he toppled the rest of the way to the ground.

“Quiet, pal. I don’t want your friends to come looking for you,” Evan whispered, wincing at the ruckus he’d caused. He pulled the strap of the gun out from under the large body and swung it across his shoulder, then began searching for anything else that might be useful.

“Rygel, report,” a voice on the radio said. Evan snatched it off the soldier’s belt and found the volume control, turning it down. Seemed they had heard the noise.

There was only one door into this particular lab, and he didn’t really want to try and fight off however many soldiers might be running around out there. He needed another way out. Glancing around the dark room, he spotted a vent on one of the walls. Well, if he was going to do _Die Hard_ , might as well do it right.

He stuffed the extra hand gun he’d pilfered into his waistband and clipped the radio on as well. He hadn’t found any ammo, so hopefully that meant these things didn’t take any. The sound of running feet in the hall told him it was time to go.

Climbing up on a table cluttered with half-disassembled devices, he reached for the vent covering and was relieved to find he could reach it. Barely. But the thing was screwed shut. “Dammit,” he cursed, as the sound of boots grew louder. If only he had a… Searching the table he was standing on, he saw a screwdriver amongst the pile of junk. And next to it was an Ancient PDA. Perfect. “Thank God for engineers,” he murmured, getting to work on opening the cover as quickly as he could. 

He got the two necessary screws out to swing open the access panel, wasting no time thinking about how claustrophobic this was going to be as he pulled himself up and crawled inside. There wasn’t enough space to turn around in the narrow tunnel, but he managed to reach back and shut the panel behind him just as footsteps descended into the lab.

As he slithered quietly into the dark space, he heard the shout that indicated they had found their buddy, followed by a call over the radio.

“Commander, we have a problem. There is a Lantean somewhere in the city. They attacked Rygel and stole his weapons. We do not know where they went.”

“Find them,” came the answer. “And kill them. We cannot afford to waste any more time.”

“Yes, sir.”

So much for anonymity.


	3. Chapter 3

It turned out, the Ancient PDA had been a good idea, because from the inside of the ventilation tunnels, Evan had no idea where he was in the city. Thankfully, the device had a map, which it helpfully supplied when he concentrated on it. As much as he was not the kind of guy who got into the latest and greatest technology fads (his computer back home was proof that he tended to hold onto things until well past when they should be retired), he had to admit, Ancient tech was pretty cool.

He was a little surprised that the aliens hadn’t figured out how to track him using the citywide life signs detector, but it seemed they either didn’t know it existed or didn’t know how to activate it. Or maybe they did know where he was, but couldn’t get to him. Most of the ones he’d seen did seem to be on the larger side; over six feet tall and jacked with muscles. Ah, the rare benefits of being a smaller guy.

As safe as he felt in the ventilation tunnels, Evan hadn’t been able to stick to them exclusively since moving up and down the long, metal shafts to get to different floors with no climbing gear was a challenge he wasn’t up to at the moment. It had been easy enough to avoid the patrols using his life signs detector, but the closer he got to the central tower, and specifically Operations, the more alien troops he encountered. 

He’d been sneaking around the city for about an hour now, gaining more intel on the bad guys. One downside of the Ancient PDA was that the screen was too small to show him more than a section of the city at a time, so he had to keep moving to figure out where these guys were and how many there were. So far, he’d concluded that there were about twenty stationed near or in ops, and there were ten groups of about ten each that were either standing guard in key areas or moving through the city in patrols. They must have brought in another batch of troops after the video footage he’d seen.

Unfortunately, his hope to get into the armory to procure some more familiar weapons had been dashed. He hadn’t been able to see with his own eyes what was going on, but the cluster of dots on the PDA had been enough to tell him he wasn’t getting anywhere near there. He hadn’t seen any of the aliens carrying the weapons stored there, so they must have preferred their own, but they weren’t stupid enough to leave it unguarded either. 

Listening to the radio chatter had been less enlightening than he had hoped. It seemed they had figured out he’d snagged a radio and were speaking in a code he hadn’t been able to crack. They hadn’t tried to communicate directly with him yet, and he hadn’t initiated a conversation either, mostly because he wasn’t sure if they would be able to determine his location if he talked to them, triangulate the signal or something. He also just didn’t know what to say. But eventually, he had a feeling he would have to talk to them to try and determine why they were here.

Based on the bit of spying he had done, he’d been able to figure out a few things about them. First, he had definitely never encountered them before, or read anything about them in any of the information he’d seen. They hadn’t met a lot of groups in Pegasus who had this kind of technology, since the Wraith usually kept races from being able to make such advancements.

They were definitely a military unit of some kind, given their training and the uniforms they wore. That was another rarity in Pegasus, again because of the Wraith. There were the Genii and the Satedans, but otherwise Evan didn’t know of any large, organized armies. And not only were these guys well trained, they were well supplied. Their equipment wasn’t a hodgepodge thrown together like some kind of militia, it was in what he assumed was good condition, clean and orderly. 

He hadn’t seen their weapons in action since the video feed, but after fiddling with the ones he’d taken from the soldier, he guessed they were similar to some of the other energy-based weapons he’d seen in Pegasus. Not as accurate as a P-90, but effective at hitting a target. The hand gun reminded him of Ronon’s pistol, except smaller. Based on his observations of their general competence, assuming it extended to their skills in combat, he concluded he would rather not get in a shoot-out with these guys unless there were no other options. He wasn’t sure he even knew how to shoot these things, let alone reload or recharge them or whatever you had to do if they stopped shooting. 

After getting a good sense of what he was up against, he made his way to Ops, and was now overlooking the gate room from a vent opening up above. He could only hear about half the conversation going on below him, but he could see well enough, and he didn’t like what he was seeing. 

McKay was there, operating the main computer with obvious reluctance and shooting dirty looks at the commander, whose name Evan still hadn’t caught, but whom he had decided to call Hans Gruber (obviously). From his high vantage point, Evan really couldn’t tell what McKay was doing, but they clearly wanted something from him and were holding a gun in his face to make him obey.

Strangely, Eaton and Clarke were there as well, both sitting on the stairs and staring straight ahead, completely expressionless. Like robots or something. He remembered the soldier in the hall saying something about two people being “programmed” and wondered what that meant. Had they been hypnotized or something? It would be far from the first time someone had fallen to the mind-control tactics of an alien race.

Every once in a while, Hans would wave his gun toward one of them instead of McKay, which seemed to make the scientist more agitated. That reaction led Evan to think that whatever was influencing them probably wasn’t permanent, otherwise he wouldn’t be so concerned about their well-being. Because while McKay cared more about people than he let on, he wasn’t sentimental and wouldn’t hesitate to preserve his own life over two people he deemed lost causes.

While that brought a little bit of relief, it also made things more complicated. Now there were three hostages he had to work around, two of which would likely be uncooperative. And while Evan didn’t think the bad guys had killed anyone yet, he couldn’t be sure that they wouldn’t take out a hostage if they felt their foothold on the city was compromised. 

This was going to be harder than he thought, and he hadn’t thought it would be easy to begin with.

There was a woman there looking over McKay’s shoulder and reporting to Hans. So far, all of the soldiers that Evan had seen had been men, and this woman gave off something distinctly geekish. Evan wondered if she might be some kind of computer expert or something, because she seemed to be monitoring what McKay was doing.

And what McKay was doing currently seemed not to be what Hans wanted him to be doing. Evan watched as the man grew more and more agitated while McKay grew more and more obstinate, until Hans drew back his gun and clipped Clarke hard against the back of the head, sending him tumbling down the stairs, and then turned toward McKay and raised it again to hit him next.

Okay. Time to interfere.

“Alien intruders, please respond,” he said into the radio, his voice quiet enough not to carry into the room, but loud enough to be heard.

Hans stopped mid-swing, first surprise and then a slow smile spreading across his face. He took his radio from his belt and spoke into it. “Ah, the rogue Lantean. I was wondering if I might hear from you.”

“Yep,” Evan said. “Here I am.”

He could see the confusion on McKay’s face and rolled his eyes, knowing the scientist was trying to connect the voice he was hearing with someone who could still be in Atlantis. As if the two of them hadn’t worked together enough times already for him to recognize Evan’s voice.

“And where exactly might that be?” Hans asked, motioning to his men. A few of them moved in to stand guard closer to their commander while the others fanned out to search for him and inform their buddies outside to do the same. 

Evan scooted back into the shadows a little more so he wouldn’t be spotted, though they weren’t looking up at the ceiling and he wasn’t even sure they would be able to see him behind the grate anyway. “Oh, you know. Around.” Now that he was talking to the guy, he was drawing a blank on what to say. Obviously, asking him to leave wasn’t going to work, and he had never been very good at intimidation. “I would tell you, but that would ruin all the fun of finding me.”

“You may have evaded capture for now,” Hans snarled, “but my men _will_ hunt you down, and when they catch you, they will not show the same mercy to you as was shown to your companions. I promise you this.”

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to make promises you can’t keep?” Evan snarked back, surprising himself a little with the knee-jerk response. Okay, maybe he had a few ideas of things to say. “And you should know, threatening me isn’t going to make me want to come out. Now maybe if you made some promises that worked in my favor, like releasing my people, I would be more apt to cooperate.”

“I do not believe you are in any position to negotiate.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Evan said. “I don’t negotiate with terrorists anyway. Kind of a big no-no where I come from. So how about we skip that part and you tell me who you are?”

“You do not need to know who I am, only that I am now in charge of Atlantis.”

“Fine, don’t tell me. But ‘guy who is in charge of Atlantis’ is a little long-winded. Mind if I call you Hans instead?”

McKay’s eyes suddenly went wide and his mouth rounded into an ‘o.’ Evan rolled his eyes again. Seriously? Had he _just_ figured out who was on the radio?

“I have no time for games,” Hans snapped, the patience gone from his voice. 

“Neither do I,” Evan snapped back. He wasn’t getting as much information from this conversation as he had hoped, but Hans hadn’t threatened any of the hostages, which he took as a good sign. Hopefully that either meant he needed them alive or he wasn’t interested in violence, though he _had_ threatened Evan, so maybe that only went so far. “Get out of my city now and I may let you and your men live.”

This was apparently funny to Hans. “One man against my hundred? You cannot possibly win back this city. It belongs to me now. Give up, and save yourself the shame of being hunted like an animal.”

An idea began to form in Evan’s mind. “You’re wrong,” he said. “It’s not just me. I have Atlantis on my side. And, let me tell you, Hans, she is not happy.”

He heard a shout and saw one of the soldiers point up toward the vent where he was hiding out. Time to go. He took off just as an energy bolt hit the vent cover, blowing a hole straight through it and singing the top of the tunnel. Guess they weren’t using stun anymore. 

They continued to shoot at the ceiling, but he was already gone, scooting down the narrow passageway as quickly as he could manage. Well, now they definitely knew how he was getting around the city, but he didn’t let it bother him too much. He doubted they would chase him in here, firstly because they were too big to fit, and secondly because they didn’t have a map like he did.

And anyway, now he had a plan, however terrible it may be.

His conversation with Hans had made him realize something. He wasn’t John McClane, he was Kevin McCallister. And these crooks were going to rue the day they’d decided to rob _his_ house.


	4. Chapter 4

From all his recon, Evan had determined that he was at a big disadvantage against the hundred and twenty-ish invaders in Atlantis, especially given that the only weapons he had he wasn’t entirely sure how to use. However, he _did_ have the advantage of knowing Atlantis better than any of the alien soldiers. And not just the layout of the city, but all of its little quirks and malfunctions that gave it personality (and had caused some hilarious and not-so hilarious shenanigans in the past). It was these that he was going to utilize to take his city back.

Given that the intruders hadn’t killed any of his people yet (as far as he knew), he wasn’t thrilled about the idea of slaughtering them. It was too risky, knowing that they had over a hundred hostages, most of whom were being held off world somewhere. Not to mention, it would be impractical to pick them off one by one. What he needed to do was trap groups of them in various parts of the city so he had some hostages of his own, and thus some leverage to use against Hans. 

He sensed he’d probably been watching too many Christmas movies during his quarantine, but booby-trapping Atlantis to catch the bad guys, much like Kevin in _Home Alone_ , actually wasn’t a half-bad idea. Hell, the Ancients themselves had booby-trapped half of the city against _each other_ , and left behind all kinds of weird devices that practically begged to be used in situations like this. He just needed to get his hands on a few and get them set up strategically so he could catch as many of these bastards as possible.

His initial idea, the one that had popped into his head while chatting with Hans, came from one of his personal experiences shortly after his arrival in Atlantis. He had been escorting a group to check out one of the still unexplored regions of the city. The place was huge, and between fighting the Wraith and just trying to survive that first year, they hadn’t made it to nearly half the city yet, so teams that weren’t assigned off world were often on exploration duty. On that day, they’d stumbled across a large, empty room with large pillars that connected metal catwalks up above. Not necessarily an oddity from what they’d seen of the city, but this room had a massive door in the floor and large windows all along one wall that led to an observation room, which was different.

Long story short, one of the scientists in the group had gotten excited by a label she found on the door and tried to open it, thinking it led to a chamber containing a submarine for undersea exploration, which would make sense in a floating city dedicated to scientific research. Turns out, the door _was_ for underwater research, but was actually intended to allow large creatures to pass through from the ocean (the Ancient word for “submarine” and “aquarium” were apparently almost identical). The room had immediately sealed itself off and started filling with very cold seawater.

Thankfully, McKay and Zelenka had figured out how to let them out of the chamber before the water had risen above the catwalk, but they’d still spent a few hours soggy and cold. The locking mechanism was complex, easy to engage but requiring multiple people with specific codes to unlock from outside the room, presumably similar to a locking system used for dangerous animals in a zoo (which made everyone curious about what kind of animal the aquarium was intended to hold). Annoying at the time, but perfect for trapping some bad guys now.

The hardest part of trapping a bunch of guys in there would be getting them all into the room. But he had an idea for that as well.

Right now, there was a large concentration of aliens in the engineering labs, probably still looking for whatever it was they had been searching for earlier. Coincidentally, the engineering labs weren’t all that far from the aquarium room. He just needed to get them to move in the right direction down the hall and they would head straight into his trap. 

Getting the aliens out of the engineering labs was high on his list of priorities anyway, since he wanted to slow down whatever evil plot they had going on. If he could _keep_ them out of there, even better. And that was where the PRD, or Pheromone Repulsion Device, was going to come in handy.

The PRD was one of those devices that was only useful in very specific situations. He had encountered the thing once upon entering the botany department, where they were using it to make a certain type of flower bloom so they could collect the pollen or something (Doctor Parrish made about as much sense as McKay when he talked about plants). All Evan knew was that it had smelled horrific, even two labs away. The thing smelled so bad, in fact, that some of the more clever Marines had started calling it the “Skunk Machine,” and the name had stuck.

He’d been pleased to find the device in the botany labs where he’d last seen it, and was relieved it wasn’t too big to haul back toward engineering. Setting it up was a bit more tricky. From what he knew of it, which admittedly wasn’t very much, the chemicals it released were strong enough not only to create the terrible smell, but were also powerful enough to burn a person’s eyes, nose, lungs, even skin. While that would be great to prompt the aliens to get out of the labs, he had no desire to experience it first hand.

The best solution he’d come up with was a gas mask, though he really didn’t know how much good it would do against the device. There wasn’t a lot of time to come up with a better solution, though.

He set up the device but hesitated before he activated it, suddenly second guessing if this was really a good idea. “No turning back,” he sighed, grimacing in anticipation as he laid a hand against the cool metal globe. Taking a deep breath, he concentrated on turning it on.

Maybe the gas mask helped, but the stench still made Evan gag as he made his escape from the spreading fumes. “Oh my _God_ ,” he groaned, coughing at the overpowering smell. He hoped it didn’t stick to him. That would just be a perfect addition to this already amazing Christmas.

Staying in the halls in order to move faster, he watched his PDA closely to make sure he didn’t run into anyone. He was pleased to see the little dots already moving away from where he’d planted the device. Now he just needed to get them to move into the aquarium room.

Once he cleared the reach of the smell, he ditched the mask and got into position to wait for the soldiers to get closer. “Come on, come on,” he muttered, watching the dots moving toward him.

He held up the alien rifle, watching down the hall until one of the soldiers came around the corner.

“Hey, ugly!” he shouted. “Over here!”

The alien whipped around and spotted him, raising his weapon to fire off a shot. Evan dodged around the corner, hearing the footfalls of boots behind him. Now to hope he’d caught more than just one guy’s attention.

He burst into the aquarium room and wove between the storage crates. On the opposite side of the room, more soldiers were appearing to cut off his escape. Perfect.

Swinging onto a ladder on the backside of one of the pillars, Evan scampered up as fast as he could. This was the most dangerous part of this plan; he was sorely exposed on the three story ladder. But due to the angle and distance, the aliens couldn’t get a good shot yet.

Even with his decent head start, the soldiers caught up quickly, already beginning to follow him up the ladder. He swung the gun around from his back and shot off a couple of bolts, hitting the first guy and making him fall into the second who had climbed up behind him. 

A few more rungs and he reached the catwalk above, staying low as he bolted to the left, feet slapping against the metal walkway loudly. Shots continued to whizz past him, some hitting the metal near his feet, and he pushed himself faster. Almost there...

He broke out of the room and immediately slapped the wall controls, giving it extra emphasis with his mind to close quickly and lock securely. Muffled blasts hit the blast door behind him as it slid closed, and he dodged to the side of the door and watched the control panel next until the lights changed to the locked position. 

Taking a moment to catch his breath, he pulled out the PDA to see how many he’d trapped and grinned when he counted the dots inside the room. “Twenty down, only a hundred left,” he muttered to himself, and then flinched when he heard a loud bang at the door. 

Right, no time to waste. He quickly considered his next move and decided he should probably go to the warehouse next. It was the name they’d given the shielded space where they put the more “useless” devices they had discovered. Those might not be useful under normal circumstances, but right now, they were exactly what he needed. 

He took the ventilation tunnels again, now that the other patrols had been alerted to his presence in the area. He could see the dots converging on the aquarium, presumably to try and free their friends and shoot him, but he had already passed them. Smirking, he shuffled along toward his next destination, imagining the frustration when they realized they couldn’t get the doors open.

No one was in the warehouse, though there was a patrol not far from there, so he would have to move quickly. Climbing out onto another well-placed table, Evan hopped down and immediately began searching the shelves of broken or otherwise deemed useless Ancient artifacts.

“Lantean,” Hans' voice barked into the radio. “I demand you speak with me.”

“Oh, hey there, Hans,” Evan drawled as he shuffled through devices, reading the tags that went along with them. Was there any order to this mess? “Was wondering when I’d hear from you.”

“What have you done to my men?”

He could have sworn the thing would be in here. Where else would they put something like that? He wished he knew what it looked like, but he’d never actually seen this one. Just heard the story a few times—a cautionary tale about being sure one knew _all_ the effects of a device before turning it on. 

“What did _I_ do?” he said, distracted by his search. “I think you mean, what did _Atlantis_ do? I told you, she doesn’t like uninvited guests.”

The rage in Hans’ reply was palatable. “Do not expect me to believe that this city is responsible for killing twenty of my men.”

Ah, there it was. Up on the top shelf, of course. He saw the clearly marked tag hanging off of it and looked for something to stand on. “Believe what you want, Hans. Atlantis isn’t like other cities. She doesn’t appreciate uninvited guests.” He dragged a chair over and climbed up, still having to stand on tip toes to reach the urn-shaped device. “And I don’t think your men are dead, though I can’t promise they’ll stay that way. That room fills up pretty quick, and the water’s cold.”

“If you do not wish me to kill your companions, I suggest you refrain from harming any more of my men.”

“I would love to agree to that, Hans, but you see, we would rather die than let this city fall into the hands of the likes of you.” Evan glanced at his PDA and saw four dots approaching his position. “But if you let my people go, I might consider letting you leave without any more bloodshed.”

There was a pause and then Hans’ voice came back, low and dangerous. “When my men find you, they will ensure you die a slow and painful death.”

Evan was already heading back to the tunnel he’d taken to get here. “You can try, Hans, but I feel like I should warn you, I’ve always been good at hide-and-seek. Can’t tell you how many times my friends gave up because they couldn’t find me.”

“I should warn you,” Hans replied without missing a beat, “that I do not give up.”


	5. Chapter 5

Once Evan got into the groove of setting booby traps, it was actually kind of fun. If he forgot about the imminent threat part, that was. His first success had given him a bit of a high, and made him think that maybe this insane plan could actually work, so he pushed aside the trepidation and embraced the ridiculous ideas popping into his head.

Since phase one had worked so well, he’d decided to keep the same formula for phase two. And since he was ripping off a kids’ movie, he thought he might as well get some animals involved in this heist. That was why he was currently sneaking around the zoology labs, searching for something he could use to chase another group of unwitting bad guys into his next trap.

Evan had never considered himself much of an animal lover, but wasn’t the kind of person to be skittish around them either. He’d grown up looking for snakes and salamanders in the woods behind his uncle’s house, and learned to gut a fish around the same time he’d learned to ride a bike. There were only a couple of critters that truly freaked him out, and always for good reason. Like the iratus bug, which he’d be happy to never again encounter in his lifetime.

But, man, did they have some _creepy_ stuff tucked away in zoology. No iratus bugs, thank goodness, but lots of other insects with too many legs or heads or mouths. And then there were the amphibian-type critters, with their slimy skin and freaky eyes, and the reptiles that slithered or skittered and had mean-looking fangs. 

He made his way slowly down the rows of tanks and cages, considering which animal might work best as a distraction, but so far none of them fit the bill. Too many were venomous, or would potentially start some kind of infestation within the city that he would end up dealing with in the future (he definitely didn’t want to have cockroach-like bugs skittering across his room in the middle of the night). Whatever it was had to be big enough to cause a scene, but not dangerous enough for him to have to worry about.

As he got closer to the mammal area, where the more cute and cuddly animals resided, he spotted just the right critters for the job. Watching them for a minute, he smiled as he imagined how the bad guys would react to an encounter with them. 

“Should’ve known it would be gremlins,” he said, chuckling at his own joke and then shaking his head at himself. He needed to quit watching so many movies. 

They were not, in fact, gremlins at all, but rather an animal similar to a bat that was very common in Pegasus. Evan could never remember what they were actually called, but everyone had just taken to calling them bats. His team had seen them on a few occasions during off world missions, so he had a basic knowledge of them. They were harmless, but would swoop and screech if their territory was invaded, which never ceased to make certain members of his team (Jones) scream like a little girl. 

Their faces did have a gremlin quality to them, with their wrinkly foreheads and pointy ears, and they were pests, so he figured the reference fit. Many villages they’d encountered complained about the things getting into their food supplies, gnawing holes and nesting in the walls of their homes, and breeding like crazy. But they were beneficial as well, managing insect populations and pollinating important crops, so the villagers found ways to coexist with them. 

Evan wasn’t sure if the zoology nerds had collected an entire colony of the bats for some reason or if they’d just bred in here, but there was an entire flock, or whatever a group of bats is called, in the cage. Definitely enough to cause a ruckus.

Now he just had to make them mad so they would attack the bad guys. Which meant he was probably going to have to get in the cage.

He sighed, eyeing the piles of droppings on the floor and wishing yet again that he’d just put on some dang shoes before leaving his quarters earlier. “The things I do for these people,” he muttered, swiping his hand over the door lock.

The cage was built like an aviary, the bars going from ceiling to floor and a double door to ensure none of the bats escaped. He propped both open as he entered, careful to avoid the slimy droppings. A hundred tiny black bat eyes turned toward him curiously, but they didn’t seem agitated by his presence, they seemed bored. He spotted one yawning in the corner.

“Maybe I should feed you,” he told them, wondering how one went about pissing off a bunch of bats. “It’s probably after midnight.” He didn’t even know what these things ate. Bugs? Did they have bugs for them somewhere? 

His gaze fell on a hose hooked up on the far side of the cage. “Or how about a bath?” Worth a try.

Turning on the water to a low pressure (he didn’t want to blast the poor critters, just irritate them), he pointed the nozzle toward the bats and flipped the switch to release a gentle shower of water. 

The reaction was immediate and intense, the bats shrieking their displeasure and fluttering madly to escape the spray. A couple of them swooped at him, claws out, making him duck and swing the hose around again to send them the other way. 

“Man, you really are gremlins, “ he murmured, continuing to chase the bats out until there weren’t any left in the cage. By then, he’d successfully worked them into a fury, and now they were screeching and flying in wide circles, looking for something to attack. Checking the PDA, he was pleased to see there was a group of dots approaching. They’d probably been nearby and heard the commotion.

“There’s plenty of guys out there to take your revenge on,” Evan told the angry creatures. “Just, not me, okay? We’re on the same side.”

The bats didn’t listen, of course, but as much as he didn’t enjoy them diving at him with their shrill screams, it was all just for show. As soon as he opened the door to the lab, they zipped right past him, spilling out into the dark hallway. 

He smiled when he heard the surprised yells in the hallway, and then winced when it was followed by alien gunfire. Oops, hadn’t thought about that. The zoology geeks were going to be more pissed at him than the bats, especially if any of their precious specimens were injured. Even if they were a dime a dozen in Pegasus.

Convincing himself the bats were agile and quick enough to avoid the blasts ( _he_ was, and he wouldn’t consider himself particularly nimble), he climbed back into the ventilation tunnels to head to his next destination. There wasn’t time to worry about the bats right now—he had more work to do.

Now that he’d been slithering around the tunnels for a few hours (he didn’t know exactly how long because his watch was sitting on his bedside table and the Ancient PDA lacked a clock feature), he had gotten pretty good at the awkward set of movements needed to propel himself quickly through them. After all this was over, he was going to suggest to Sheppard that they add this to the regular PT lineup. Not only because knowing how to navigate the tunnels would be useful information, but also because it was a full body workout. He was definitely going to be sore tomorrow.

By the time he made it to the east pier, he could already see dots moving quickly toward him. He allowed himself another moment of celebration that his plan was working. There had already been a couple of patrols down here, and it looked like two more were on the way. That was forty guys he could potentially trap.

He’d chosen the east pier specifically because there was only one main hallway that led into it, and it wasn’t connected to any other part of the city. On top of that, there wasn’t really anything important there, just a lot of storage rooms, the gym, the sparring room. Nothing for the bad guys to use to get into trouble. 

He waited anxiously as more dots moved past the threshold of the pier, tucked back in the vents where they couldn’t see him or the device he’d planted here earlier. He could hear them shouting about the bats, some clearly terrified while others tried to convince them they were harmless, and he chuckled at the panicked argument. 

When the last soldier was through, he scooted forward and quietly swung open the access panel, peeking out to make sure they weren’t looking up at him. A rogue bat flew past, still screeching bloody murder, but the aliens below were too busy covering their heads to see him.

Evan picked up the device and thought it on, careful not to touch it to the side of the tunnel. That would be just perfect, if he booby-trapped himself. Which he might end up doing anyway, because he wasn’t entirely sure how powerful this thing was or how far-reaching its effects would be. Saying a silent prayer that it would only affect the surfaces it touched, he dropped it out of the open vent covering.

It hit the floor with a clang, causing the soldiers who were still retreating from the bats to whip around and see where the noise had come from…

...And fall straight to the ground, their feet sliding out from under them as if they were standing on ice.

Evan snorted a laugh as he watched them struggle to get back to their feet unsuccessfully, splaying out again. It reminded him of the scene in _Bambi_ on the icy pond. They couldn’t get any traction to get up at all.

Just to be sure the tunnel wasn’t affected, he shifted backward a couple of inches and was pleased to find he didn’t slide away like a greased pig. Good. So now he knew the Anti-Friction Device only worked on the surfaces it touched. 

Maybe the exhaustion was catching up to him, or maybe it was just that watching the aliens fall over was incredibly amusing, but Evan decided he could give himself a five minute break to observe his masterpiece. He now understood why Sheppard loved regaling the tale of the time McKay had turned the device on in his lab before understanding what it was, and how he had spent most of an afternoon just trying to get back over to it so he could turn it off. He would have paid good money to see that.

“Sir,” a voice buzzed over the radio, and Evan spotted the speaker as one of the soldiers currently lying flat on his back. “The Lantean, he’s done something to the floors.”

“What do you mean?” Hans’ voice answered.

“We cannot… Get out of this wing,” the soldier replied, flopping useless again. “We are trapped.”

There was a pause, before Hans spoke again. “How many are with you?”

“Four squadrons, Commander.”

Another pause. Based on the tightness in his voice, Evan guessed Hans was not pleased. “Four?!”

“There were angry deukas attacking us, Commander,” came the ashamed reply. Deukas, _that’s_ what the locals called the bats.

“Find a solution,” Hans said, cutting off the conversation with clear annoyance.

Evan considered bragging about his latest achievement, teasing Hans about how a few harmless bats had terrorized his tough soldiers, but he’d read enough cautionary tales as a child to know about pride and falls and all that. He didn’t need to rub Hans’ nose in the fact that he was kicking his butt; Hans was well aware. But it probably was high time to offer up the surrender card again.

He retreated back into the tunnels before making the call, just in case one of the soldiers flailing around in the hallway beneath him spotted him and got off a lucky shot.

“Hans, buddy,” he said cheerfully. “Thought I’d check in, see how everything’s going.”

There was no response. Apparently Hans was a sore loser. “Hans? You still there?”

“Lantean,” came the biting reply.

“Oh, good. I was worried,” Evan said, moving back toward the central tower. He wasn’t that far from Ops, and he decided he should check in and see how the hostages were doing. “I heard Atlantis has been pulling more pranks on your men.”

There was a long pause, but just as Evan was about to call again, Hans came back on. “You think you are clever, Lantean, with all your tricks. But I am done with this game.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t be like that. We were just starting to have fun.”

“Unfortunately for you, the fun is over,” Hans said, his voice smug. 

Before Evan could wonder what he meant by that, the air kicked on. No, not air. A cloud of something hit him, making him cough. What…?

“Shit,” he cursed, crawling faster. Hans must have figured out how to access the fire suppression system, because that was CO2 pouring through the vents. He needed to get out of here. Now.

The dizziness was already starting to creep in on him as he struggled to pull in a breath. His arms didn’t want to move anymore, his legs felt like dead weight dragging behind him. But he could see an opening up ahead. Just a few more feet...

Pressing his face against the vent covering, he tried to draw in a breath, but the cloud was too thick. He threw his shoulder up against it as hard as he could manage. No time to unscrew the bolts. He couldn’t see anymore, couldn’t think. He did it again, hitting it with all he had. Once, twice, three times and the cover popped open.

He fell gracelessly to the floor, coughing as the fresh air hit his lungs, and as his vision returned he could see the wispy cloud of gas dissipating above him. A bolt hit the wall nearby, and he jolted upright, stumbling clumsily to his feet and spotting the soldiers running toward him from down the passage. Damn, they’d played his own game against him. Forcing himself to move and keeping his hand on the wall for balance, he staggered down the hall as more shots whizzed past.

As his head cleared, he realized he was nearly to the jumper bay. If he could get there, maybe he could get into a jumper and get out of here. He swung the alien rifle around to fire a couple of shots back toward the aliens chasing him, pressing his tired legs to go faster.

A blast grazed his shoulder, and his arm went numb and dropped the rifle. Cursing again, he ducked around into the bay, dismayed to find more soldiers waiting for him there. Of course they would be guarding the jumpers.

Desperately, he reached for the handgun tucked in his waistband with his good hand, searching for any escape route he could find. But before he could even fire off a shot, he was hit squarely in the chest with a blast, and the world fizzled out around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, guys. The bats are all fine. In fact, they all got tiny medals of commendation for their contribution to the defense of Atlantis. Okay, maybe I made the last part up...


	6. Chapter 6

An icy cold wave snapped Evan back to consciousness, sputtering and gasping under the painful deluge. Instinctively shaking his head to clear the water pouring into his eyes and mouth, he tried to orient himself. 

“Wake up, Lantean,” a familiar voice sang nearby.

Blinking the last of the water out of his eyes, he focused on the man in front of him, a shiver running through him as the cold water seeped into his clothes. “Hans,” he coughed. “So glad we could finally get together.”

He was tied, hands behind his back, to the chair in Doctor Weir’s office. Besides the commander, there were three other soldiers in the room, two with guns and one setting down an empty bucket, plus McKay, who was sitting on the couch in the corner of the room watching him nervously.

Hans looked him up and down distastefully. “You are not what I expected,” he said.

Evan coughed again. Damn, had they poured the entire bucket straight up his nose? “Thought I’d be taller?”

“I did not expect you would fit the description of ‘disease’ so accurately,” Hans snarled, his lips peeling back from his teeth in a hideous smile. “It is no matter, though. It seems you have lost your game.” 

“Yeah, well, I’d say you cheated, but I think we all know you play dirty.” Evan flexed his wrists in the rope bindings, trying to judge their strength. If he could get them to loosen up a little bit...

A fist connected with the side of his face, snapping his head to the side. He shook it off, glaring at the goon who’d hit him. 

“I have not harmed any of your kin, and yet you do not show the same regard for my men,” Hans spat, his eyes burning.

“You attacked us. What did you expect? That we wouldn’t put up a fight?” Evan answered, matching his tone. 

Hans’ hand hovered over his gun, and Evan thought for a moment he was going to draw it and shoot him in the head. But instead, he turned away, motioning to one of the soldiers who enthusiastically punched Evan in the gut. 

“I have no need to explain myself to the likes of you,” Hans said icily as Evan tried to catch his breath. “You have taken up quite enough of my time.” 

Hans turned toward McKay, who was watching the scene with a mixture of horror and anger on his face. “I hope this will be an example to you of how painful the deaths of your friends will be if you do not cooperate. We are not a violent people, we see no point in needless killing and we have no grudge against your people. But if you do not give me what I want, I will send word to Uliruah to begin executing your people, one by one.”

“I-I…” McKay stuttered, at a loss for words. His eyes flicked over to Evan, who gave him a hard look. McKay swallowed and turned back to Hans. “I’ve told you, I don’t know what you’re looking for. Killing him isn’t going to change that. Why don’t you just send him away with the others?”

This made Hans laugh and look back over his shoulder at Evan. “Oh, I am afraid this one cannot be redeemed, no matter how much you plead for his life. He is getting what he deserves.” Another flick of his wrist and another fist across his face, and this time Evan tasted blood.

“Kill him. However you see fit,” Hans said, his tone almost bored, as he left the room. 

The three soldiers looked all too happy to comply, and were apparently pissed enough at him that they decided a simple shot to the head was too simple. The two who had been holding guns set them down on Weir’s desk and cracked their knuckles as they prepared to beat him senseless. That was their mistake right there. Cocky bastards.

Because while Hans had been doing his obligatory speech about threats and evil plots and all that, Evan had been furiously working on the ropes tying his wrists. Really, if they didn’t expect him to get out of these, they should have used something stronger than rope. 

Evan had never been the best at hand-to-hand combat, but he’d done his fair share of sparring with Teyla (aka getting his ass handed to him by a hundred pound woman), and he’d learned a thing or two. Especially when his assailants thought he wasn’t a threat. 

He didn’t get his hands out of the restraints quite in time to stop the first couple of punches, but that just meant they were completely unprepared when he finally did block the first goon’s fist, throwing out his other elbow at the same time to catch the second goon in the solar plexus. Without wasting a second, he kicked out both feet at the third who was in front of him, knocking him backwards into the corner of the desk and sending him to the ground.

“McKay, guns!” he shouted, kicking out the back of the first goon’s knees as he turned toward where the guns were laid out on the desk.

Evan had to give him credit that McKay only hesitated in shock for mere seconds before jumping toward the guns, grabbing one with his still tied hands (they had been tied in the front, presumably so he would be able to type), and pointing it at the first soldier. “Freeze!” he shouted in a wavering voice. “All of you. Or I swear I’ll shoot!”

It was enough of a distraction for Evan to get to his feet and slam his elbow into goon number two’s temple, sending him to the floor to allow Evan to grab one of the weapons himself. He used it to knock out the first soldier, who had frozen under McKay’s weapon, and then turned to shoot the third, who was trying to get back to his feet.

The glass walls of Weir’s office shattered and an energy bolt nearly missed Evan as he yanked McKay down behind the desk. Screaming, the scientist crouched into as small a ball as he could. Another energy both hit the desk, blasting a hole in it but not hitting them. Yet.

Evan peered out from the side of the desk just enough to shoot back toward the men in Ops, clipping one successfully in the shoulder. Vaguely, he noted that Hans wasn’t there and was slightly disappointed, wondering if they’d whisked him away once the shooting started. No matter now, he had to focus on the task at hand. He needed to clear a path to the jumper bay. The stairs were at the back of the room, off the side of the balcony. 

“McKay, we’re going to jump,” he told the scientist, flinching as another bolt hit the desk. 

McKay’s wide eyes turned to him in horror, his mouth gaping. “Are you insane? We’re going out there? That’s suicide!”

Evan shot another bad guy. Only a couple more to take down. They’d spread themselves thin now that he’d disabled half their ranks, but he was sure they’d be sending in backup soon. “No, it’d be suicide to stay here,” he said. “We’re making a break for the jumper bay.” He glanced over at McKay with what he hoped was a reassuring grin. “I have a plan.”

“You _planned_ to get caught?” McKay squeaked.

“Not exactly,” Evan admitted with a wince. “I’m improvising.”

“Oh, that’s just great,” McKay complained, his voice rising in agitation. “You’re just like Sheppard, you know that?”

“Good, so you’re used to it,” Evan said, firing off a few more rapid shots to take out another soldier. There was their opening. He grabbed McKay’s sleeve and yanked him toward the balcony, keeping low and holding up his gun with the expectation that more guys would be flooding the room at any minute. “Now shut up and jump!”

He didn’t wait for McKay to obey, but rather threw both of them over the edge of the railing as the scientist screamed. Rolling when he hit the ground below, Evan managed to get to his knees, gun up, already shooting at the soldiers down here. The stairs to the jumper bay were only a few feet away, and once they got there, they’d have a lot more cover.

Out of the corner of his eye, Evan spotted movement a second too late, but was surprised when the enemy soldier hit the ground. Glancing behind him, he saw McKay with the gun he was still holding onto, covering his back. For a split second, Evan was impressed at how well Sheppard had trained him, and curious how often he’d been forced into situations just like this before—because as terrified as he clearly was, he also seemed to know what he was doing. But the sound of more boots reminded him this wasn’t the time or place to ponder such things.

Evan again grabbed McKay’s sleeve and pulled him toward the stairs as more bad guys appeared. A shot whizzed past his ear, and he said a small prayer of thanks that these guys seemed to have the accuracy of stormtroopers, or they would both be dead by now.

“This way!” Evan ordered, diving into the stairwell with McKay on his heels. Rushing up the steps, he crouched at the top and shot off a few blasts into the jumper bay, gaining some return fire so he could see how many guards were in here and where they were. Two of them, on either side of the bay. Biting his lip, he did a quick calculation of the likelihood they could make it to the nearest jumper. 

A terrified yelp from McKay as another bolt nearly hit him made up his mind. “Make a break for Jumper Four,” he said. “I’ll cover you.”

McKay’s face was pale, but he nodded.

“Go!” Evan shouted, hopping out from behind the wall to shoot at the aliens as McKay ran helter skelter for the jumper.

Somehow, they made it into the jumper in one piece. Evan slapped the door control as he ran to the cockpit, sliding into the pilot seat and immediately powering up the small craft. 

“They disabled the bay doors,” McKay panted from the copilot seat, flinching as an energy bolt bounced off the side of the ship.

“I figured as much,” Evan said, lifting the jumper into the air and raising the shields. He took a deep breath and held it, bracing himself for the impact as he told the ship to ignore the closed doors and punch through them anyway.


	7. Chapter 7

“I think I might have broken a rib.” McKay whined, rubbing at his side with a wince.

Evan glanced at him, frowning. He had experience with broken ribs, and from what he could tell, McKay didn’t have one. “You’re fine, Doc.”

“Fine? You just pushed me off a balcony! I could have—” His eyes suddenly went wide. “Oh my God, and you touched me!” He pulled up the collar of his t-shirt so it covered his nose and held up his hands up defensively, as if Evan was an evil spirit he needed to ward off. “You probably infected me!”

“McKay,” Evan said shortly. “Priorities.” This was no time for his hypochondria.

McKay still looked horrified, but he considered the words and dropped his hands and shirt reluctantly. “Right,” he said. “Just… don’t touch me again. Maybe I’ll still manage to come out of this disease free.”

Evan sighed heavily, trying to keep his temper in check. “Fine.” He had worked with McKay enough by now to know when to choose his battles. “You’re welcome for the rescue, by the way,” he added with a grumble. 

McKay waved a hand at him in a gesture that could have equally been gratitude or dismissal. “Yeah, yeah, thanks and all that. I would have preferred less being shot at, though.” He turned back toward the front window, which revealed they were flying over a whole lot of dark ocean, choppy waves revealed by the moonlight. “Now where are we going, and what’s your plan for getting those guys out of Atlantis and getting our people back?”

Good question. “Honestly?” Evan said with a grimace. “This was about as far as my plan went. I was hoping you could help with the rest.”

McKay rolled his eyes. “Of course. Everybody always makes me do the hard part.”

“Hey!” Evan argued, the aches and pains and overall exhaustion from running around and having the snot beat out of him all night—all while still sick—making him grumpier than usual. He was supposed to be lying around watching movies and eating cookies, not fighting off a hundred alien invaders. “I took out half their guys by myself and rescued your ass, thank you very much. All without my own damn gun.”

McKay actually looked contrite as he studied Evan. “Yeah, about that… What exactly _have_ you been doing to piss off Hans and his crew? I didn’t get much over the radio, but he blew a conniption over it.” He paused and frowned. “And what are you _wearing_?”

The way he asked the question just highlighted how ridiculous the entire situation was, and suddenly all the tension and adrenaline that Evan had built up was released in a fit of hysterical laughter. 

“What’s so funny?” McKay asked, his frown deepening. Clearly he thought Evan had lost it.

“Sorry,” Evan chuckled, trying to reign himself back in as he wiped tears from his eyes. “I didn’t exactly have time to get dressed. As for what I’ve been doing… It’s a long story. Let’s just say about half of them are trapped in various parts of the city.” He took a deep breath, the gravity of their current circumstances returning. “More important is what these sons of bitches want with Atlantis.”

McKay was still watching him warily, but he sighed and shook his head slowly. “I don’t really know. They wanted me to download parts of the Ancient database to their computers, and they’re looking for some kind of device. I have no idea what it is, but they’re convinced it’s in Atlantis somewhere.”

“Who are they?” Evan asked, creasing his brow. 

“They call themselves the Uluru,” McKay said. “I don’t know where they came from, though I’m assuming Uliruah because they keep saying that name. They claim that the Ancients double-crossed their people a long time ago, stole something from them, and that’s what they’re looking for.”

While that wasn’t a completely far-fetched story based on what Evan knew of the Ancients, it didn’t excuse them from invading Atlantis. “Do you know what they did with everyone else?”

McKay shook his head. “They marched everyone through the gate, supposedly to this Uliruah place, but I didn’t see the address. They say they’re not interested in us, that they just want Atlantis, but they’re holding everyone someplace safe until they find whatever it is they want.” 

Great. Evan had been hoping that McKay might have some insight into these guys that would help them, but it sounded like he was almost as clueless as Evan. “What about Eaton and Clarke?”

“Ah,” McKay said, his face lighting up. He knew something about this. “They ‘programmed’ them. I’m assuming it’s some kind of brainwashing or hypnosis—not sure how it didn’t come up in their post-mission exams. It must have happened on one of their recent missions, which would indicate that these guys come from someplace they’ve visited recently, but I don’t pay attention to the schedule enough to know where that might be. There must have been some kind of pre-programmed signal to get them to let these guys into the city. The commander, Hans, I guess is what you’re calling him, is using some kind of voice control on them now, but it seems pretty limited. He’s mostly just made them sit there and stare at the wall since they took me.”

Where had Eaton’s team gone recently? Evan sifted through the schedule in his mind. They’d been out a few times in the last month, but most of their missions had been with established allies. There had been one new planet; MX-something. They’d met a race there called the Yuhana, but they’d been human, and Evan didn’t remember the name Uliruah showing up anywhere in anyone’s AAR from that mission. In fact, that mission had been pretty cut-and-dry altogether—a pretty typical first contact. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Evan let out a long breath, his mind churning with the information. It wasn’t a whole heck of a lot to go on, and it didn’t help with the coming up with a plan part. Maybe the rest of their people were on that planet, maybe not, but even if they were, there wasn’t much Evan and McKay could do about it until they took back the gateroom. 

“Is there a way to lock them out of the systems remotely or something?” he asked. If they could regain control of the computers, that would be a big help.

McKay shook his head. “Their computer geek knows too much about Ancient technology. Seems she’s studied it before. She caught all my attempts to slow them down, and figured out systems I purposefully didn’t show them, like the city-wide life signs detector.”

Damn, so that’s how he’d been caught. 

“So how do we get them out of the city?” 

“How am I supposed to know?” McKay snapped. “You’re the one channeling Sheppard. Can’t you, I don’t know, blow them up or something?”

“If we also want to blow up half the city and the Stargate and never see our people again,” Evan answered, the irritation returning. He still didn’t understand how Sheppard motivated McKay into a useful state rather than this pessimistic mess he was now.

“You know what?” he decided suddenly, before McKay could come back with the insult Evan could literally see forming on his tongue. “I don’t know about you, but I missed dinner and could really use a snack.” If there was one thing he knew about McKay, it was that he was happier when he was well fed. And, if Evan was honest with himself, his own mood would probably be improved by some food. He turned on the autopilot and stood, moving to the rear of the jumper to dig through the supplies. There were usually a couple of powerbars hiding somewhere in there.

McKay didn’t respond, but accepted the powerbar that Evan threw at him (a little harder than was strictly necessary), engulfing it before Evan could finish rifling through the supplies to find another one. The scientist chewed thoughtfully as he stared out the main window, letting out a frustrated sigh. “I’m not great in these kinds of situations,” he admitted, fidgeting with the empty wrapper in his hand.

Evan snorted, sitting back down and peeling open his powerbar.

McKay shot him a scowl. “What?” he demanded.

Shrugging, Evan took a bite before responding. “Just not true, that’s all.”

“What’s not true? Me not being good in these situations? Of course it is. The last time, when the Genii took over Atlantis, I nearly got everyone killed.”

Evan smirked at him incredulously. “Bullshit.”

“You weren’t even there,” McKay argued, brushing him off with a wave of his hand. “How would you know?”

“I read the report,” Evan countered. “ _All_ the reports, actually, including Doctor Weir’s. She said you saved her life. Stepped in front of the gun when Kolya was going to shoot her.”

McKay looked down at his hands in his lap. “I barely did anything. She was the one who stalled for time so Sheppard could rescue us.”

“You _also_ came up with the solution to power the shield so the city wouldn’t be destroyed,” Evan continued, as if he hadn’t heard McKay’s retort. “So really, you saved everyone in the end.”

McKay was watching his hands, shaking his head slightly as if he wanted to disagree. Oh, now he wanted to be humble? Or was he really that frozen in self-doubt? Evan wasn’t too proud to admit that McKay was a genius and probably their best shot at getting these aliens out of Atlantis. If he needed a little ego-stroking to get his ass in gear, so be it.

“And I’m not just talking about when the Genii took over Atlantis,” he said, trying not to dwell too much on the fact that he was potentially feeding a monster right now. “I’ve read other mission reports. Seems to me like you work _better_ under threat of imminent doom.”

McKay glanced up at him, a frown forming on his face. “Oh, come on.”

Evan quirked an eyebrow. He almost had him. “Tell me exactly how many last minute solutions you came up with in circumstances a lot more dire than a few aliens playing house in Atlantis?”

McKay stuttered for a second, but couldn’t come up with a good answer.

“Tell you what,” Evan offered as the final push, “you help me come up with something, I’ll let you have the extra powerbar.” He held up the third powerbar he’d found tucked away in the back. 

McKay looked half insulted, but snatched the powerbar out of Evan’s hand anyway before turning to the console. “All right, fine,” he said irritably. “The jumpers have _some_ ability to communicate directly with Atlantis. Let’s see if I can bypass some of these systems and hack into the city. If only to shut you up.” He knit his brow in concentration as he pulled up the HUD and began pulling up information.

Evan tried to cover his smirk by looking interested in what was on the screen, peering over McKay’s shoulder as if he understood anything the scientist was doing. 

“Do I need to get you mittens?” McKay mumbled in disgust, not bothering to look away from the HUD. 

“What?” Evan glanced down and saw he was scratching his arms raw. He growled in frustration and sat on his hands. Damn Pegasus Pox.

“This is useless,” Mckay said after a few minutes, smacking the console in frustration. “I told you, that woman knows something about Ancient tech. She knew I had backdoors into the computers so she shut down almost everything. I’m going to need to be _in_ Atlantis to do much of anything.”

“Are you sure?” Evan asked, knowing McKay’s tendency toward the melodramatic.

McKay just glared at him in response.

Sighing, Evan let his shoulders slump for a second. Of course things couldn’t be that easy. Well, it wasn’t like they could get the aliens out of the city from here anyway. “All right, so we go back to the city,” he said, trying to keep the exhaustion out of his voice.

He expected McKay to protest, and was surprised when he agreed instead. Maybe his speech about the scientist’s past heroics had gotten to him. 

“Of course we have to go back,” McKay spat unhappily. “But let’s not be suicidal about it. We’ve already done enough of _that_ today.”

“I’m all ears, if you have a plan,” Evan reminded him.

McKay made a face at him that Evan couldn’t quite interpret. “I can probably slow them down from any terminal in the city, but we’re going to need to get back into Ops to cut off their access to the Ancient database.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” Evan prompted, seeing the wheels turning in McKay’s brain.

McKay started to shake his head and then stopped, tilting it slightly. He looked at Evan and snapped his fingers excitedly. “We give them what they want.”

“What?” Evan asked, not following.

“The device,” McKay continued, his face brightening with the idea. “The thing they’ve been looking for. We give it to them.”

Evan frowned in confusion. “I thought you said you didn’t…” He trailed off at the look McKay gave him, like it was all he could do to wait for Evan to catch up to his much faster brain. “Oh. You mean a decoy.” Duh.

McKay’s grin returned, apparently pleased that Evan wasn’t a complete idiot. “Exactly. They don’t want to kill us. Well, they don’t want to kill me—pretty sure Hans will throttle you if he sees you again. But if I say I found the thing they want and that I’ll bring it to them...”

“I can sneak in with you and take out Hans,” Evan finished. 

“Well, yeah, I guess we could do that,” McKay said, frowning. That clearly wasn’t the angle he’d been going with. “I was thinking we could use whatever it is to distract them enough that I can hop on the computer and shut the city down. But, yeah, I suppose taking out Hans would be good, too.”

Evan considered it for a moment. It would take some doing, since they had no idea what the device even looked like, and he wasn’t sure how savvy Hans would be to their bluff, but it had potential. He smiled back at McKay. “See? I knew you’d come up with something.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize it took me so long to get the rest of this story posted. 2021 hit me like a brick wall, and it took me a few days to unbury myself. When I did finally get a moment to sit down and do a final read-through/edit of the last couple chapters, I ended up adding a bunch of stuff which split this chapter into two. So you get an extra chapter for your long wait?
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy the rest of the story!

“How do you know all the dead spots in Atlantis so well?”

Evan glanced over his shoulder at McKay, who was watching the life signs detector with the same nervous energy of a child waiting for a jack-in-the-box to pop. Not that it would do him any good here, other than to see that they were in a dead zone. Atlantis had a lot of random areas like this, where life signs didn’t show up for one reason or another, and while most of them weren’t conveniently located near the central tower where they needed to go, they were a good way to sneak back into the city without being seen, now that Hans knew how to use the city-wide scanners.

Shrugging, Evan turned his attention back to listening for any soldiers that might have made their way all the way out here. He doubted they would have, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared for trouble.

“This is one of Sheppard’s hiding places, isn’t it?” McKay said after a while. “That’s how you knew about it.”

“Maybe I just pay attention to the city schematics,” Evan supplied. It was true, he _did_ have almost all the dead spots in Atlantis (at least the ones that had been discovered so far) memorized, but _only_ because of Sheppard’s uncanny ability to disappear off the city’s sensors for hours at a time. Usually when he really didn’t want to deal with a particular person or situation, leaving Evan to fix whatever the problem was. Most of the time, it wasn’t a big deal, but there had been a few occasions that it had caused some issues. Which was why Evan had gotten really good at tracking him down.

“Oh, come on. I’ve seen the schematics a hundred times and even _I_ can’t remember all the dead spots,” McKay argued.

“Well, maybe I just have an excellent memory,” Evan said, shining his flashlight around the corner. It wasn’t his job to rat out the places Sheppard went to get away from everyone. A lot of the time, McKay was the one he was hiding from anyway. And if McKay really wanted to know where he went, he could probably figure it out easily enough for himself.

A disbelieving grunt from McKay made him shoot glare back at the man. “No, I didn’t mean…” McKay said quickly, trying to backpedal his unintentional insult by waving his hand in the air. “Just, I don’t… I mean, you’re so...” 

Evan raised an eyebrow, waiting to see where he thought he was going with that sentence that wouldn’t end in another insult.

“Nevermind,” McKay mumbled. He took a breath, shifting the conversation to something else before he dug himself a deeper hole. “Where are we going?”

“You need a computer, right?” Evan said. “The only lab I know of that they won’t pick us up on the scanners is down here.”

“But there’s nothing down here. Except…” McKay suddenly went a little pale, realizing where it was they were headed. “Wait, are we going to the morgue? As in, where we keep the dead bodies?”

“You were the one who suggested we sneak back into the city in a dead spot.”

“I didn’t mean in a _literal_ dead spot!” McKay squeaked in outrage. “There has to be another place that isn’t so… Creepy.” He shivered to demonstrate his point.

Evan hadn’t told him where they were going specifically because he knew McKay would react like this, but the morgue made the most sense as the place to infiltrate Atlantis undetected. The life signs detector was always wonky there for whatever reason, and it was far enough away from where Hans’ troops were patrolling that they should be safe. It was the perfect spot to hack into the computers, if you could ignore the bodies.

“If you know of another place we could go and stay under the radar, feel free to suggest it,” he challenged.

McKay opened his mouth to respond, but as he’d just admitted to not knowing the dead zones in the city very well, Evan wasn’t surprised he didn’t have an actual suggestion. “Fine,” he grumbled. “We’ll shut them out of the computers, but then we’re out of there.”

Evan wasn’t going to argue with that. It wasn’t like he enjoyed spending time in the morgue either. 

In an expedition as dangerous as Atlantis, where new alien threats were revealed almost weekly, the morgue was a grim necessity. Not all that different from the SGC, though the likelihood of being one of the unlucky ones to end up there was higher given the smaller number of people here overall. Most days, Evan tried not to dwell on the numbers, though there were plenty of times he wondered if the cost was worth it. But the fact was, if they weren’t out here fighting off the bad guys, those bad guys would find their way to Earth, and the numbers would be a lot higher.

So far today, the bad guys hadn’t added any bodies to the morgue, and he didn’t intend to let them.

McKay moaned unhappily when they reached their destination, poking his head in the cold room nervously as if he expected a ghost to jump out and greet them. 

“Doc, I don’t think it’s haunted,” Evan told him.

“You don’t know,” McKay retorted grumpily, shuffling into the room and sitting down at one of the computers with a humpf. “Of all the weird alien stuff we’ve come across here, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were spirits hanging around.”

Evan decided not to entertain the conversation anymore, suspecting the McKay’s mood had more to do with the overall stress of the foothold situation and not as much to do with an actual fear of ghosts. Instead, he wandered around while McKay worked, trying to work out the next part of the plan. They needed to get into the gate room, he needed to get his hands on Hans, but he wasn’t sure the best way to go about doing that without getting them both captured again. 

“Did Hans say anything about the device he’s after?” he asked after a couple of minutes.

“Not really,” McKay answered, typing away furiously at the keyboard. “He said some vague stuff about it being used for travelling long distances or something and that I should know what it was.”

Evan furrowed his brow in thought. “Like a puddle jumper?”

“Obviously not, since they know where those are,” McKay muttered. 

“Another type of ship?”

“I don’t think it’s a ship. They made it sound like something small. Handheld.”

What handheld device had to do with travel? “Transporter of some kind?”

McKay stopped typing and glared at him. “Look, do you want me to shut them out of the systems or not?” he snapped irritably, and then turned his attention back to the computer. “I already said, I don’t know what it is. To be honest, I don’t think he really knows either.”

Evan made an apologetic gesture and returned to exploring the room. Interesting. So if Hans didn’t even know what it was he was looking for, that could give them some room to bluff about it. Although, his men must have some idea what it looked like, or they wouldn’t be searching for it. But if the Ancients had stolen it from them however many years ago, it was entirely possible the thing wasn’t here anymore, or that it didn’t even exist.

A moment later, Rodney smacked the table triumphantly. “Ha! You may be clever, but no one can outsmart Rodney McKay.”

“What’ve you got?” Evan asked, looking over McKay’s shoulder to see the screen.

McKay snorted, as if that was the stupidest thing he’d asked all day. “You mean what _don’t_ I have? I took back access to most of Atlantis’ systems, everything I can from here. We should be able to significantly slow them down, but I’ll still need to get into Ops to completely cut off their access to the database.”

“Good job, McKay,” Evan said genuinely, earning a smile from the scientist. “So that means you can turn off city-wide scanners so they won’t see us coming?”

“Yes,” McKay said, typing again on the keyboard. “But before we do that…” He pulled up the scanners to show where the enemy soldiers were currently located.

“Good idea.” Evan studied the screen, counting the patrols moving through the labs (though still maintaining a wide berth from engineering, he noted with a smirk) and the men stationed near or in the gate room. It seemed they had doubled the guard near Ops, anticipating that their escaped captives would make a reappearance.

“Can we lock down these areas?” he asked, pointing to the screen. That would cut off more of the soldiers from interfering without blocking their route to the gate room.

McKay hit a few keys and the areas turned red. “Done,” he said. “Now that just leaves the guys around the gate room to get through.”

Evan bit his lip, the vague plan he’d been working out earlier solidifying as he watched the dots on the screen. “I think I have a plan for that,” he announced.

“You _think_ you have a plan?” McKay said, eyeing him warily.

“No, I definitely have a plan,” Evan amended. “You’re just not going to like it.”

McKay rubbed his eyes wearily, sighing in defeat. “What else is new?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

Evan was back to crawling through the ventilation tunnels. As expected, McKay hadn’t been thrilled about his plan, especially the part about acting as bait, but he was as desperate for this all to be over as Evan was, and so had begrudgingly agreed that it was the best way for him to get into Ops and for Evan to get to Hans. After a quick stop at the warehouse, the two had gone their separate ways; McKay to turn himself in and Evan to figure out a way to get into the gate room unseen.

“Hello, Hans,” Evan heard over the city-wide radio. “This is Doctor McKay. You know, the guy you held at gunpoint earlier.” He paused for a long moment before adding hastily. “You can push the red button on the main control console to talk through Atlantis’ radio.”

“Doctor McKay,” came the reply a moment later. “I knew you would return.”

“Yes, well, we would still appreciate you getting out of our city,” McKay said.

“I assume the other Lantean is with you?”

“He’s… around. Listen, the reason I’m calling is because I want to make a deal with you. Obviously we’re a little outnumbered here, which puts us at a bit of a disadvantage. In light of that, I’m willing to give you the device you want, and in exchange, you promise to leave.”

There was a laugh before Hans responded. “Ah, Doctor McKay, you wish to negotiate. Not as suicidal as your friend, are you? But why would I agree to leave when I currently control the city?”

“Look, Hans, we’re not idiots. You already know that I took back control of most of the city’s functions. Including self-destruct. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the idea of blowing us all to hell, but like you said, my friend is a little more suicidal than me. He’s prepared to start the countdown if you don’t leave.”

A pause. “Lies. You would not destroy Atlantis.”

“You would know if I was lying. I’m not good at it.”

“Then why give us the device?”

“As a show of good faith, so you’ll give us our people back. You said before you have no grudge against us. Well, we don’t much care about you or your device. We just want our people back safely, and we want you to get out of here and never come back.”

Another long pause. “We accept your terms. Bring the device to the gate room. Come unarmed. Once we ensure that it is what we are looking for, we will leave and return your people to you.”

“You’re not very good at lying either, are you Hans?” Evan murmured to himself as he continued his journey toward the gate room. 

By the time he snuck up in the vent under the staircase leading from the gate room to Ops, he could already hear McKay’s voice echoing in the room, even though he couldn’t see anything. Settling down to wait for the signal, he tried to make out the conversation, hoping this whole thing didn’t go sideways. It all hinged on McKay’s ability to convince the bad guys he had the device they were looking for long enough for him to turn it on, which would hopefully cause the distraction needed for Evan to get the jump on all the soldiers in the gate room and somehow nab Hans…

He took a deep breath, pushing aside all the ways this could go wrong. It was going to work. 

He could hear McKay saying something about the device being in the box, and that he would be happy to demonstrate it for them to prove it was the real deal. Of course, the device they’d chosen as the decoy didn’t actually do anything other than make an obnoxiously loud sound. Evan supposed maybe the Ancients had used it to give each other headaches, since that was about the only use they’d managed to find for the thing. But for now, he hoped it would have the same effect as blasting an air horn in a quiet room.

The talking got quieter as they went up the stairs into Ops, McKay complaining of being escorted more roughly than was necessary. Evan tensed, waiting anxiously for the signal...

The ear-splitting screech from the device went off a moment later, and Evan popped out from his hiding spot, gun raised and already shooting at the soldiers guarding the gate. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw McKay ducking behind the control panel in Ops, and heard the doors to the room slide shut. Good. They wouldn’t be getting any reinforcements.

“Stop them!” Hans shouted over the awful noise as his guards immediately began herding him away.

Evan took cover next to the stairs as energy bolts began to fly in his direction. He spotted four shooters, and with dismay realized that two of them were Eaton and Clarke. So they weren’t staring at the wall anymore. They got off a couple more shots, but their aim was a lot worse than the alien soldiers, which made Evan wonder if they were somehow subconsciously fighting the hypnosis. 

Whether or not they were under complete control, they were in the way of him getting to Hans, which wouldn’t do, so Evan took a second to hope his weapon was set to stun (he was pretty sure it was) and took them both down. That left two aliens by the gate, plus two more that were covering Hans’ escape.

He couldn’t get a good angle from where he was to take out the guys near the gate, so he rolled across the exposed floor to hide behind a corner. He picked off one before a shot from behind warned him that he was exposed to the guards that had gone with Hans, who it seemed had set up their defensive line having no where else to go. Evan scrambled back further so they couldn’t get a clear shot at him, hoping McKay could deal with the last soldier by the gate. His priority was Hans.

They’d pushed their commander back into a strategic corner, impossible to get to without going through the guards, who had better cover than he did. He managed to graze one of them, making the man’s arm flop uselessly, but in the process, the other one managed to hit Evan’s weapon, sending a stinging jolt through his hands and making him drop his gun. He slumped back behind the wall at the same time the shrieking sound finally stopped, grimacing at the tingling sensation shooting up his arms, and opened and closed his hands to make sure they still worked. 

“I got him, Commander,” the guard said, making Evan freeze. 

“Did you kill him?” Hans asked.

“I only stunned him.”

Hans grunted. “Make sure the other one is neutralized. I’ll take care of this one myself. Shoot him in the head as I should have done before.”

“Yes, sir.”

Forcing himself to go limp, Evan closed his eyes and listened as the guard’s footsteps jogged past. At least he knew McKay was still up there since he must have been the one to turn off the screaming device, and from his observations earlier, Evan knew he _could_ handle himself in a fight. Hopefully he’d had the sense to grab a weapon off one of the stunned soldiers.

Another set of boots came closer, stopping in front of him, and then a relieved chuckle. “A shame you cannot look me in the eye before I take your life,” Hans said, and Evan heard the sound of his weapon charging. 

He jumped into action, launching himself at Hans and tackling him to the ground. The alien commander yelped in surprise, but recovered quickly, catching Evan in the ribs with a knee and nearly knocking him to the ground. But Evan was determined, headbutting him with enough force to stun him long enough to wrangle the rifle out of his hands. Hauling him up by the collar of his shirt, Evan threw his arm around Hans’ neck and shoved the gun in his temple.

“Don’t,” he told the soldiers running back to help their commander. “Drop your weapons, or I swear I’ll blow his head off.”

They hesitated for only a moment before lowering their guns to the floor and holding their hands up in surrender.

Hans had gone still in his grasp, his own hands up and trembling slightly. Not so tough now that he was the one in the line of fire. “Tell your men to surrender. All of them. Now,” Evan ordered, motioning toward his radio. 

“I will not,” Hans snarled, the blood leaking from his nose turning his teeth red.

Evan tightened his grip on the gun. He was tired, sore, and sick, and he really just wanted this bullshit to be over. “I’m in no mood, Hans,” he hissed. “You call them now and I’ll let you all leave in one piece. Otherwise, I shoot you and then I take out all of them, too. And don’t tell me I can’t do it. You’ve already seen that I can.”

His threat must have sounded sincere, because Hans reached slowly for the radio clipped to his breast pocket. “All troops, be advised, this is your commanding officer. We are surrendering the city back to the Lanteans and returning to Uliruah.”

“Good,” Evan said. “Now, walk.”

He led his hostage out from the corner and into the center of the gate room, right past the guards. They watched him darkly, waiting for him to make a wrong move so they could rescue their commander. 

He wasn’t going to let that happen. “McKay,” he called, “get over here.”

McKay, who _had_ procured a weapon and was holding it on the computer lady, looked around in confusion, like maybe he was talking to someone else. “What do you—”

“Get over here,” Evan repeated, shooting him a look. “I need you to tie his hands.”

“Oh.” McKay glanced at the woman, who wasn’t going anywhere now that her commander was being held at gunpoint, and lowered his gun. Walking down the stairs, he smiled smugly at the soldiers before stopping next to Evan. He looked around, the smile disappearing. “Do you have any rope?”

Evan narrowed his eyes at the scientist. “Does it look like I have rope?” he asked.

McKay bit back what Evan was sure would have been an insult (which was probably the closest thing to a “thanks for saving Atlantis” he was going to get from him) and instead began searching for something to use as handcuffs, mumbling grumpily to himself. “Try Eaton,” Evan suggested. “He probably has zip ties in his vest.”

“I knew that,” McKay said, turning back toward where the lieutenant lay unconscious on the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, Evan saw one of the aliens shift his weight when McKay passed him. There was his wannabe hero.

“Hey!” he barked toward the soldier, who froze immediately, eyes snapping back to where Evan was shoving the gun in the side of Hans’ head. McKay spun around as well to see why he was being yelled at. “I said no funny business, or your commander here is toast.”

“Stand down, Tarhale,” Hans ordered, and the soldier relaxed reluctantly.

Realizing that the soldier had been thinking of attacking him, McKay watched him dubiously as he searched Eaton’s pockets for the zip ties and then hurried back toward Evan. 

“I underestimated you, Lantean,” Hans said as McKay slipped the zip ties over his wrists and pulled them tight. “You have proved to be a worthy adversary.”

“Yeah?” Evan answered, finally feeling like the end of this was in sight, which meant the exhaustion and pain from the last however many hours were all hitting him in full force. “Well, yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.” 

McKay blinked and then his face broke into sudden understanding. “Oh, Hans Gruber. _Die Hard_. I get it.” He frowned and looked at Evan like he was an idiot. “Really?”

Evan ignored him, a slow grin spreading across his face. It wasn’t quite over yet, but he felt safe to call this a victory.


	10. Chapter 10

Once the alien troops realized their commander was being held hostage, they were quite agreeable about leaving Atlantis. It seemed Hans wasn’t just the commander of the army, he was the leader of the Uluru, and a popular leader at that. The aliens packed up their things, collected their people (sans the ones trapped in the aquarium), and promised to return the captive Lanteans immediately. In return, Evan agreed to return Hans to them, once all his people were safe and accounted for.

Sheppard was the first to come back through the gate, his eyes flicking around the room to take in the situation. “McKay. Lorne,” he greeted cautiously as more people poured in behind him. He eyed the burn marks on the walls and the shattered glass around Doctor Weir’s office. “How’s your Christmas been?”

“Not too bad, sir,” Evan responded cheerfully, his relief at seeing his colleagues back where they belonged outweighing his guilt at the damage he’d caused. Well, Hans and his goons had caused. Evan hadn’t really had much of a choice in the matter. “Yours?”

Sheppard scanned him with a strange look on his face, and for a second Evan thought he might be mad about the state of Atlantis until he once again remembered how ridiculous he looked right now, in his pajamas and bare feet. Plus, he was still covered in red spots, and had added a shiner and split lip to the mix, along with various other cuts and bruises. He shifted his grip on the alien rifle self-consciously as more people glanced at him curiously.

“Oh, you know, the party got crashed, spent the night locked up in a _very_ uncomfortable warehouse, but we didn’t let it kill our Christmas spirit,” Sheppard answered casually, giving him a half smile now that he saw the situation was under control and his people weren’t too mangled up.

“You’re both insane,” McKay interjected with disbelief.

Beckett pushed his way through the crowd forming in the gate room with a slightly panicked expression. “Is everyone all right?” he asked, his eyes searching for injuries.

“We’re fine, Doc,” Evan said, ignoring the scowl the doctor was giving him. He jerked his head up toward Ops, hoping to deter Beckett’s attention from his bruised face. “You should probably check out Eaton and Clarke, though. They were under some kind of hypnosis, and I had to stun them.”

“We are not fine!” McKay argued indignantly. “Not only was I pushed off a balcony earlier, I have been in close quarters with Major Pegasus Pox here for hours now. I’m already starting to itch.” As if to prove his point, he scratched at his cheek. “Do you see a spot here?” he asked Beckett, pointing.

Beckett sighed in exasperation. “Rodney, it takes at least 48 hours for the first symptoms to appear after exposure.” Before McKay could interrupt, he continued, “But you do have a point. Major, you should probably head to the infirmary so you don’t expose everyone here. I would like to have a look at you before I send you back to your quarters anyway.” While it seemed Beckett wasn’t concerned that he was going to keel over anytime soon, he clearly wasn’t buying that Evan was “fine” either. “I’ll meet you once I’ve taken care of our lads over there.”

McKay began to protest again, so Beckett added, “You, too, Rodney. I want to give you a once-over, and while you’re there we can do a blood test to determine if you’ve contracted the virus.”

McKay grumbled something at the doctor’s back as he shuffled past them up the stairs. 

“Sir, the deal was that we send Hans here back once all our people were returned,” Evan informed Sheppard, motioning with his gun toward the stewing man seated on the steps.

“Hans?” Sheppard asked, arching an eyebrow. 

Before Evan could explain, McKay rolled his eyes dramatically. “Hans Gruber. He’s been playing _Die Hard_ all day. Thinks he’s John McClane.”

He missed the embarrassed glare Evan shot him.

“Taking on a city full of aliens single-handedly?” John said with a shrug. “Seems pretty accurate to me.”

“Uh, I helped,” McKay said defensively.

“However it went down, I’m looking forward to hearing all the details later,” Sheppard said, smirking. He held out his hand for the gun, which Evan gladly handed over. “For now, get out of here before you give us all Pegasus Pox.”

“Yes, sir,” Evan agreed, but he took one last opportunity to crouch in front of Hans, who recoiled from him with disgust and unconcealed resentment. “I hope _you_ get it, Hans,” he said, patting the man’s cheek as he flinched away. “A little parting Christmas gift to you.”

“Just pray we do not meet again, Lantean,” Hans hissed.

“I don’t think I’m the one who needs to pray,” Evan retorted. He leaned in a little closer, making Hans try to scoot even farther away. “Now get out of my city and never come back.”

He straightened up and started to walk away, but then turned back to Sheppard. “Oh, sir, you should know, B-6 is sealed and flooded, and there’s about twenty aliens trapped in there. And the bats from zoology are loose.” He shifted his weight nervously, now remembering that he actually was to blame for quite a lot of the mess the city was currently in. A mess he couldn’t even help clean up, given that he was supposed to be quarantined for three to five more days. 

Sheppard raised a curious eyebrow. “Anything else?”

Evan bit his lip, wincing. “The Anti-Friction device is on in the east pier entryway. Not sure if they managed to get all their guys out of there. It might be a pain to turn it off. And, uh, you might want to avoid the engineering labs for a few more hours. Oh, and we kinda had to punch a hole in the jumper bay doors earlier.”

“Sounds like you had quite the party,” Sheppard said, no longer using the light, amused tone he had moments ago. No, _now_ he looked pissed, though Evan still couldn’t tell if it was directed toward him or just the fact that his city had been damaged. “Now I’m even more interested to hear about it. Later.”

“Yes, sir.” Evan knew a dismissal when he heard one and hurried to comply.

“What did you do to my labs?” McKay asked, horrified.

“Come on, McKay,” Evan said, walking toward the door and purposefully not looking back. Sure, he might have gotten a little carried away with a few of his booby-traps, but he had taken on a hundred guys by himself. It could be excused, right?

“Seriously,” McKay said, jogging to catch up with him, “what did you do to my labs?”

Evan winced again, imagining once he was over his Pegasus Pox, he was probably going to be paying for damages in lousy mission assignments and doing even more of Sheppard’s paperwork for a while. He didn’t need to add the ire of McKay to the list. “Trust me, Doc, your labs will be fine,” he said. “They just need to air out a little.”

McKay’s brow creased as they walked down the hallway toward the infirmary. “Wait, did you set off a stink-bomb in engineering?”

“Technically, it’s a ‘Pheromone Repulsion Device,’” Evan mumbled, making air quotes around the device’s given name.

“The Skunk Machine,” McKay repeated as if he hadn’t heard. “I can’t believe it. Are you twelve?”

Evan shrugged, not bothering to hide the self-satisfied grin. Punishment be damned; he’d taken on a hundred bad guys today and won. They couldn’t be _that_ mad at him. “It got all the soldiers out of that wing and into the aquarium so I could trap them.”

“And you let the bats out and used the Anti-Friction Device…” McKay continued, putting it all together. “Oh my God, you _are_ twelve. No, not even twelve. You’re eight.”

“My sister introduced my nephews to _Home Alone_ this year,” Evan explained, his smile growing. He’d saved the city; who cared if he’d used child-like antics to do it? “She keeps telling me stories about how they’re booby-trapping her house. Might have drawn some inspiration from it.”

“Oh, I see how it is. Here you are making everyone think you’re Bruce Willis, when you’ve actually been Macaulay Culkin all along,” McKay snorted. 

Technically, he hadn’t told anyone about the _Die Hard_ thing—McKay had come to that conclusion on his own—but he would let it slide. “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal,” Evan said happily, slapping the scientist good-naturedly on the shoulder.

McKay immediately recoiled from the touch with a yelp of displeasure. “I told you not to touch me!”

Evan laughed and shook his head, holding up his hands in a “my bad” gesture. The last twelve hours had been hellish, probably his worst Christmas to date, and yet nothing—not even McKay’s hypochondria—could bring down his mood right now. Not only had he saved Atlantis, he’d lived to tell the tale. Survived the curse once again. Crossed off another December 25th from his calendar. 

Next Christmas couldn’t _possibly_ be any worse, could it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is the end of this slightly ridiculous Christmas tale. It started as an idea to do a fun short story with a couple movie references, and then it kept growing until it was twice as long as I ever intended. I'm not sure all my attempts to be funny landed, but hopefully it brought a few laughs.
> 
> I am so grateful for all the love y'all gave this story. I always say, I started writing fic just for my own entertainment, but it warms my heart to know someone else out there is enjoying the stuff I write. So, from the bottom of my ooey gooey heart, thanks for reading!
> 
> ~Minnicoops

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I would love to hear if you actually enjoyed this. :D


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